Monday, August 18, 2008

The chore here to reveal six unspectacular quirks about myself and challenge other bloggers to do the same. Patricia apparently guessed that I -- The Hawg -- just love to talk about myself and would, therefore, respond favorably to getting tagged with one of these things. She was right.

The rules here are simple:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.2. Mention the rules.3. Tell six unspectacular quirks of yours.4. Tag six bloggers by linking.5. Leave a comment for each blogger.6. Click every ad on The Hawg's blog at least twice (OK -- I made that one up).You want unspectacular quirks? I've got them in spades, kids, and here are a few:

1. I still root for the Pittsburgh Pirates in spite of several years of heartache. Yes, it's true. I've remained a loyal Pirates fan although the team hasn't had a winning season since 1992. They stink. I continue to root for them. Once I start rooting for a team, I stick with it no matter what. I'm not sure if that's a quirk or a severe character flaw.

2. I'm picky as can be about food. I know what I like and what I don't like and I absolutely detest the foods that I crossed off my list years ago. Take mayonnaise, for example. You'd think a Southern boy would love the stuff but I hate it and swear it's straight from the devil. There's a reason there's a brand of mayonnaise called Hellmann's, you know?

3. I used to be a lawyer and hated every minute of it. A lot of people have asked me why I gave up the dandy practice of law to go back into journalism and then move on to public relations. Trying to explain that is rather akin to telling a man who has been blind since birth what the color blue looks like.

4. I hate to travel. Car trips are boring and airplanes are just awful. Well, airplanes aren't that awful but layovers in airports are and it annoyed me to the core that my last flight out of Reagan International in Washington, D.C., was absolutely humiliating. My laptop bag was searched, I had to remove my shoes and I felt lucky I was allowed to keep most of my clothes on through the whole thing. Screw that. I'd rather stay home and watch television. It's cheaper, anyway. The only travel that sounds appealing to me at all would involve a few stops at major league ballparks to watch my beloved Pirates lose in person.

5. I love anything having to do with World War II. If I see a show on the History Channel that's in black and white and features Americans shooting at Nazis or Imperial Japanese, you'd better believe I'm going to watch it. The same goes for Hogan's Heroes and Baa Baa Black Sheep.

6. It's "y'all," not "ya'll." Learn this and learn it now -- "y'all" is a contraction for "you all," whereas "ya'll" doesn't mean a thing. Furthermore, the distinctly Southern "y'all" is preferable to the harsh, grating and Northern "you guys" as it is gender neutral. Leave it to Southerners to come up with a collective pronoun that both rolls off the tongue and applies equally to men and women. Hah! Take that, North!Well, that's it. Now it's time to move on to the fun part of the exercise -- picking six blogs to tag with this thing. So, here goes:1. Margie and Edna's Basement -- this blog intrigues me. Perhaps the ladies behind it will break character and tell us a bit about themselves. If I ask nicely enough. Come on, ladies. Please?2. Lyndonology -- This blog is more than a bit intriguing. I'd love to learn more about this cat.

4. The Bullshit Stalker -- here's a blog put together by someone who sounds about ready to explode from outrage at any given moment. Learning of a few quirks would be nothing but enlightening.5. Call Center Gal -- Another great blog written by someone I think would be a good sport about being tagged out of the blue.6. Elvis Lover -- Can't resist. Anyone who loves The King even more than I do must have something fascinating to say.

As for travel, I traveled by train to St. Louis once as a kid (that was the summer I got to see the Cardinals play a couple of games and hear Reagan speak at the Checkerdome). The train ride was great. Hanging around the terrible train station in Little Rock wasn't so great.

Why? I wanted to make money. Piles of it. Gobs of it. I wanted to head to a bank with a wheelbarrow to make deposits. Also, I had this naive idea I might be able to further the great cause of justice through practicing law.

That's all laughable, isn't it? First of all, choosing a career because you think you can get rich from it is a terrible idea -- people should stick with what they love. Second, I know a lot of lawyers and most of them aren't in the "look how rich I am category." Third, there's a lot of difference between what you learn in law school (Constitutional law and such) and what you actually do when you're practicing law (trying to keep people out of jail for their fourth DWI, defending nasty rapists and etc.)

In short, it was all just a horrible, horrible idea. I should have just stuck with journalism after I earned my bachelor's degree or followed a plan I had to get a master's at Vanderbilt in political science (I graduated with a high GPA from Hendrix College so I had a good chance of going to Vanderbilt) then getting a PhD at the University of Texas.